Kirby Soaring Overseas

The Japanese sales charts don't lie. Not only is Kirby 64, known as Hoshi no Kirby 64 in Japan, topping the sales charts in its first week of release, but it out sold every PS2 title combined for the week ending March 26, 2000. According to Famitsu magazine's sales data, Kirby moved a healthy 337,000 units in its first week, compared to 118,000 units for the top three Playstation 2 titles, Ridge Racer V, Golf Paradise and Kessen, combined.

Ridge Racer for the PS2 has moved nearly half a million units since its debut, along with Sony's new console itself, on March 4th. 500,000 pieces of software in three weeks is certainly a hit game, but not quite as devastating as Kirby's 300,000+ units in only one week. At this rate, IGN64 predicts Kirby 64 will pass RRV's total sales figure in about 20 minutes.

This also raises some interesting questions about the Japanese market. What does it mean when a powerhouse franchise character debuts in Japan on a dying system that was never that popular to begin with and outsells software for a brand new, highly anticipated console? Not much, if Kirby 64's success in only a flash in the pan. It won't take long for all interested Japanese N64 owners, the handful of them that there are, to get their copies of Kirby which will slowly cause sales to taper off. Furthermore, it will be interesting to see how Kirby holds up once Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask is released later this month in Japan.

IGN64 will have more on Kirby 64 including media, info and reviews as soon as we brush up on our Japanese.